Everyone is assembling themselves in the gymnasium, getting prepared for Physical Education class. It’s first period on a Monday so the excitement is somewhat unexpected. The answer soon came to me.
“Hey Jordan, did you hear? We’re playing basketball today.”
I glanced over to see who was speaking.
「Ah, it’s Sean.」
Sean is a kid I share a few classes with. He’s good at sports, diligent in his studies, and he’s… um… not ugly I guess (for a guy). So in other words friends with everyone.
“Oh is that so, well that certainly explains the commotion.” We engage in idle chat for a moment until the gym teacher enters the gymnasium.
“Alright guys quite down, everyone knows we’re playing basketball so let’s get right into things.” At those words the room goes quite. PE is only an hour long and as you could imagine everyone wants to use that time to it’s fullest. “Sean and Kyle, come to the front.” The two start making their way to the front of the group. “You guy’s are the two team captains, get to it.”
There was no need for the teacher to explain anymore, we all knew the rules. Sean and Kyle were selected by the teacher to be the captains of the two teams that would be playing against each other for the hour. Now they take turns picking people from the group to join their team until everyone from the group has joined a side.
“Ok I’ll go first.” Sean steps forward and points in my direction. “John.” The boy standing next to me steps out and stands next to Sean. And so it began.
“Jenna”
…
“Gary”
…
“Stephen”
…
Finally the group was narrowed down to two people: me and a girl names Destiny. I wasn’t surprised though, this happens all the time. Be it picking teams in PE or picking groups for a class assignment, the moment it comes time to choose suddenly the person I was enjoying a conversation with no longer knows me.
「That’s fine though, I’m used to it.」
I glanced at the girl standing next to me. Shorter than average and… slightly heavier than average.
「I guess that means they’ll be choosing me next—」
“Destiny.” I hear the words come out of Sean’s mouth. Even Destiny seemed surprised but walked forward nonetheless.
「Ok… that one kinda hurt.」
“Alright, Jordan joins Kyle’s team and we can get started.” I sighed at the gym teacher’s words and began walking over to Kyle.
Second period, Physics class.
Nothing exciting ever happens in this class. To be honest, I already know all of the material. About a year ago I had a phase in my life where I was obsessed with learning new things. I bought used books for cheap and taught myself many advanced subjects including: atomic physics, nuclear astrophysics, calculus, and even dabbled in advanced maths such as differential equations. Only dabbled though, anything past first-order linear differential equations was too difficult.
But eventually that phase ended. I was learning a lot of advanced stuff that had no practical application in my daily life. I couldn’t talk to anyone about it either.
「People lose interest before I can even finish explaining what a differential equation is.」
But that’s the reality of it. A year later I hardly remember any of it, I remember just enough to get me through this class. Today the class was just reviewing for the test we would be having later in the week. I wasn’t paying attention, I honestly didn’t need to. I was actually sensing the signals my brain was receiving from my limbs.
Allow me to explain. When you get cut or bruised your brain is constantly updated with signals about that injury. Pain. If you distract yourself and try to ignore those signals then the injury will not bother you as much. You effectively throw the pain signals to the back of your mind and ignore them. That’s how I deal with my pain anyways.
But I also discovered the opposite is true, if you receive an injury and instead concentrate on those pain signals then your injury will become many times more distracting. This doesn’t only work on pain signals, your entire body is constantly sending your brain signals. Even as your butt sits in a chair your brain is continuously receiving signals about the texture and temperature of the chair. I’ve learned that focusing on these signals is an excellent way to preoccupy yourself.
This is just another strange habit of mine, actually, compared to this shadowboxing every morning seems like a normal activity.
「Alius… very different indeed.」
Alius is a term that defines me. In Latin it means someone/something else, different, of another kind. If that doesn’t define me then I don’t know what does. I chuckle to myself.
〔AHHHHHHHHHHH!〕
A scream. I stop fascinating over nerve signals and look up from my desk. To my surprise I see a glowing girl. Yes, glowing.
“What’s happening to me?! Someone help me!” She pleas. Everyone started backing away from her immediately. This only makes the girl more nervous as she practically starts begging for help.
“Stay right there Stephanie! I’m gonna help you!” Another girl runs out of the class, destination unknown.
〔AHHHHHHHHHHH!〕
Another scream. Another person suddenly began radiating light. And then another. Before I knew it half the class was already glowing with the numbers still increasing.
“Stephanie, I’m back! Hold still!” The girl came back carrying a bucket of water, I couldn’t tell you from where she got it. The girl named Stephanie stopped panicking and turned around just in time to be splashed in the face with a bucket load of water.
“What are you doing! How is that going to help me!?”
“I-I-I thought I could put the fire out!”
“Does this look like fire to you!?”
Due to the chaos of the situation friends begin arguing with each other. I had no time to contemplate over this, I was now glowing. My first instinct was to start panicking but as I looked at the state of my classmates, the chaos, how even the teacher was panicking. I decided that even though I’m not the right person to try to manage this situation at the very least I will not add to it.
I sat back into my desk and began to wonder about this phenomenon. I’ve long since stopped believing in the supernatural. Though this might appear to be some act of magic there must certainly be a logical explanation for this chaos. But before I could ponder this much further I discovered the sound in the room had decreased my a noticeable amount. I look around the room.
People are disappearing. At this point I begin to dismiss any idea I had of a logical explanation.
「…」
I didn’t know what to think. And just like that I disappeared as well.
〔SWOA— BANG〕
I reappeared a couple feet from the ground and fell. I get up and start rubbing my back while looking around. People, many people, easily numbering in the thousands. And more keep appearing. Judging by their expressions, behavior, and clothing their circumstances should probably be quite similar to mine. Additionally, everyone seems to be around the age of 18, there isn’t a single adult nor child being teleported here.
The noise is absolutely terrible and it doesn’t seem like we’ll be going home any time soon— if at all. The only easing factor is that my classmates are reappearing in my general area so I’ll be accompanied by some familiar faces.
We seem to in a large plaza located directly in the center of a forest clearing. The trees surrounding us don’t appear to be oak, pine, maple, or any other common trees. Neither did it match the more exotic variety.
「So we’re either in some remote, undiscovered corner of the earth, or, another place entirely.」
The plaza itself wasn’t adorned with any special decorations whatsoever, the entirety of it was constructed using pure stone as if to say our arrival here was it’s only purpose. Standing at the center of the plaza was an elevated stone plateau with a crowd of people situated on it. These people were dressed in outlandish clothing. Actually, their clothing wasn’t all that unfamiliar, if I had to categorize it I’d say it belonged in your generic high fantasy setting.
Situated in front of the group was a middle aged man dressed in dazzling metallic armor with many badges pinned to his chest. If I had to guess I’d say they belonged to some sort of military group. Behind the man in armor was a well organized troop of… well judging by appearances they would be called magi. They wore robes that covered their entire body with hoods obscuring their faces. Additionally, every one of them held either a wooden wand or wooden staff in their hands. No matter how you look at it they were iconic, high fantasy magi.
「But that doesn’t prove this isn’t earth, some people are just weird like that.」
Or so I thought, but if you pay enough attention to detail you will notice they all had one key feature in common. One uncannily, otherworldly feature. They all have tails. Tails not unlike the ones you would see connected to the bottom of a monkey. Yes, a tail.
「Houston we have a problem, we are most certainly not in Kansas anymore.」
I chuckle to myself. But wait, this isn’t funny.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
From what I can tell our tailed friends are most likely our abductors in this situation. I still don’t know why they brought us here or what they wish to achieve. More importantly, I still don’t know how they brought us here.
「Seriously, don’t tell me the monkey magicians really used magic to bring us here? No that’s preposterous...」
It was at this moment, our tailed, armored friend looked out at the audience that has so kindly assembled before him. He glanced over the entire crowd and, with a scowl, turned to the men in robes and spouting something in an unknown language. Not but a moment later a slightly yellow tinted light originating from the tips of their wands and staves spread throughout the plaza.
Many people, me included, began to wonder what had happened. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the effect was soon made known to us as the sound in the plaza eventually seized. Looking around me I see people struggling to project their voice but to no avail. I didn’t bother trying either, it was futile.
「Sound travels via vibrating particles, most notably the air around us. If I wanted to silence a crowd then I’d want to find a way to stop the air from vibrating. But that’s just in theory, I can’t image how anyone would manage to do that.」
Now that silence has been forced upon the crowd everyone couldn’t help but turn to look at the men standing on the stone platform. A few seconds later people all over the plaza could be seen making surprised expressions, disbelief even, as the glance up at the platform.
「The clothes are weird but not THAT weird...」
I returned my gaze to the men on the platform. Dressed in a generic high fantasy robe, hood hiding their facial features, tails swishing behind their backs—
「Oh yea, the tails.」
At this point I’ve decided it’s in my best interest to abandon any notion of what is and isn’t possible. You tell me magic doesn’t exist and I get teleported out of my classroom. You say there must be a logical explanation and suddenly space has been locked and sound can no longer travel. What’s that? You say humans don’t have tails? Well these humans have tails.
『Ok, now that the situation has quieted down some...』
And now I’m hearing voices in my head.
『It’s been a while since I’ve done this so go ahead and raise your hand if you can hear my voice.』
If I had to guess I’d say the middle aged man in armor was the voice I was hearing. When I heard that message in my head I immediately threw my hand up. Reason being, these people can teleport you without your consent, can lock space so that sound doesn’t travel, and now I learn that they can project voices directly into my head. Oh— and they have tails. Tails! I better comply.
Looking around the plaza, the general behavior seems to be to wait until other people raise their hands so that you don’t look crazy. Understandable. Soon enough everyone had a hand raised.
『Ok, great, I’ve still got it. Well then I guess I’ll introduce myself. I go by the name Augustus Paddley. I am a well respected mage of the human race, and, if you haven’t noticed, I belong to the psychic division.』
「Dude, that’s like playing piano to a cow, we don’t even know what that means.」
『Then again, that’s like playing piano to a cow, you probably have no clue what that means.』
「This guy… Is he reading my mind? He can send and receive?」
『I’m sure you guys have many questions, spirits above, you seeds always do. But my telepathy has its limits, I am unable to hear your voices. Besides, me projecting my voice to each and every one of your minds is already an extremely strenuous task. Yes, I’d absolutely love to stay here and answer all of your questions but I’m just not able to… 〔sigh〕』
「Did you just ‘sigh’ in my head? How do you project a ‘sigh’ into someone else’s head?! You sighed on purpose! You’re trying to appeal to our emotions!」
『First and foremost, we’re going to have to teach you the language. You seeds can only understand me as I am now because of the pure thought that is being projected into your head. So, if you ever wish to communicate you’ll need to endure some pain.』
The man, Augustus, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a circular object. I watched as Augustus sat down and crossed his legs (tail protruding out behind him) and he sat with his hands in his lap with the circular object rested upon his palms. Slowly, the circular object began to levitate until it was level with his face, it then began rotating. The object is very similar, appearance wise, to a gyroscope— if you discount the fact that it is levitating. Slowly a purple tinted light, similar to the yellow tinted light that froze space and prevented sound, began to branch out from the object. At this point the light separated into many ‘streams’ that began to seek out each person in the plaza. As a stream arrived in front of me I began to wonder:
「What exactly did he mean by, "you’ll need to endure some pain”?」
It was at that moment, the stream of light seemed to pause at my forehead before resolutely drilling into it. Pain. Indescribable pain. It felt like there was something in my brain trying to claw its way out. I fell to the ground, hands gripping my head. Screeching. Terrible screeching. After what felt like hours the pain finally receded.
I glance up and see the purple tinted light retreating back to the circular device levitating in front of Augustus. Looking around me, I see the other people in the plaza gasping for air, no sound being made in the process. It was almost funny, like a mime skit. But I wasn’t laughing.
Since we first arrived here I’ve been treating everything like a joke, a game. I’ve been convincing myself that I wasn’t in any danger, that everything that happened here was of no consequence to me. But its time to face the facts. I’ve been summoned to another world. A world with magic, people who can use magic, and people who can use it to hurt me. Augustus put the device away and got back on his feet.
“Alright, that should have worked. Can you seeds understand me?”
And true to his words, we could. People looked at him with befuddlement. I could relate, I was feeling the same thing. All memories related to the English language… I couldn’t recall any of them. My entire vocabulary— gone. Replaced. I somehow learned a new language entirely, Human language. I honestly can’t even begin to imagine who would name a language as such but it seems to indicate that there are other intelligent races here (wherever here is). And there is another thing that’s bothering me.
「What is a ‘seed’ ? Why does he keep referring to us as that?」
I guess I’ll ask when I get the chance— If I get the chance. Let’s see how this plays out.
“Now that we have communication established we are able to make some progress. Since nobody likes having their time wasted how about we speed things up a bit. We’re going split into groups as we move towards our destination. I’ll head a group and my compatriots behind me shall divvy up the rest of you seeds accordingly.”
I’m not sure what’s happening exactly but, judging by the murmurs of his ‘compatriots’, they don’t either.
“There he goes, doing whatever he wants again.”
“This isn’t proper protocol.”
“I hate my job.”
…
Augustus starts forming us, the ‘seeds’, into groups. After assigning a mage to each group and sending them off in different directions the only people remaining are him, me, my classmates, and a few stragglers that happened to be in our general vicinity.
“Alright, the spatial magic has long since been lifted, you may speak.”
Testing my voice proved his words to be true. Though I wasn’t too interested in getting my voice back, I don’t talk much anyways. I was far more interested in what he said before that.
「It seems I was correct. Both times. Magic does indeed exist here and magic was used to lock the space around us, thereby preventing sound from traveling.」
“Oh? Quite the observant one. Seems I chose correctly.” Augustus said with a smile on his face.
“Huh?”
“Oh, nothing I was just mumbling to myself.”
「This guy’s full of shit, he totally read our thoughts.」
And at that thought Augustus began to laugh.
“Ok seeds, lets talk as we walk.” After saying that Augustus began to walk forward. I began following after him but it took the rest of the group a few seconds to deliberate over how they should respond before eventually agreeing to follow.
“Alright, I assume you have many questions but I don’t have the patience to answer them all, I’ll allow the lot of you to ask me 3 questions.” After saying that Augustus quickly corrects himself, “That is, 3 questions as a collective, not 3 questions individually.” After saying so he nods to himself and continues walking forward in an unbridled manner.
The rest of the group seemed to huddle together and whisper as they tried to decide what questions to ask. Funny enough, when we all first arrived here everyone was quite anxious and liable to bite the first unfamiliar face they saw. The noise was off the charts and the whole situation seemed irredeemable. But now, after experiencing not being able to talk and the unbearable pain that came with learning ‘Human language’, everyone seems quite passive. To the extent that even when they’ve been afforded the opportunity to speak freely, they wouldn’t dare to.
“Why do you keep calling us seeds?” I took advantage of their confusion to ask the question that’s been weighting on my mind. When everyone realizes that I’ve just stolen one of our collective questions they all seem quite angry. I didn’t mind, I already knew what questions were important and needed to be asked. Besides, everyone else is already scared shitless and are to afraid to talk out loud, how would we ever get any questions answered at this rate?
“Very simple,” Augustus says, “The world you come from is a world the Human race, our Human race (not the one you are familiar with), created as a lifeline. We are currently fighting a war that’s been waging since time immemorial. Should our enemies ever gain the advantage and our Human race be in danger of annihilation we can simply summon some fresh blood from any one of our seed worlds to replenish our numbers. You are a prime example of that, you are the seeds.” He thought for a moment and then added, “But our Human race isn’t in any real danger, our enemies have won a few small battles at the border and began expanding into our territory. Us summoning you here was merely a preemptive measure.”
I pondered for a moment, perhaps the average person would get mad when they learn that they’ve been summoned against their will to replenish wartime population, but I wasn’t. If it was as he says and Earth was created fir the soul purpose of replenishing this world’s human population then what can I get mad about? If they hadn’t created Earth then I wouldn’t be alive.
But that doesn’t mean I’ll let them do with me as they please. Besides, there are two sides to every war. How do I know that the Human race here isn’t the one oppressing the other side? Augustus is a human and from what I can tell he is as patriotic as they come. It would be a simple matter for him to whitewash all of the Human race’s faults. I won’t allow him to brainwash me with his ideals.
「And I know you can read minds, so bite me.」
Augustus chuckled at that but kept walking forward. The rest of the group had a pondering expression. I thought about what question I should ask next. At first I thought to ask about the other race that they were fighting against ‘since time immemorial’ but I can’t really believe everything he says. I also thought to ask about that device he used to modify our memories of language but I decided that question was too narrow, I need to ask questions that are broad so that Augustus is forced to leak a lot of information.
“Explain magic.”
When these words left my mouth the rest of the group looked as if they were ready to pounce at me. But after a moment of thought they realized it was a very interesting topic.
“Well let’s see...” He started. “All around us, in the air, the earth, the water— everything. We are surrounded by elemental energies. A few examples would be, water, fire, space, time, etc. Nobody really knows how many different elements there are. For some elements, such as fire and water, you can develop immunities towards while others, such as space and time, you cannot.
There is no way of directly interacting with these elemental energies. The two main ways of interacting with it are Mana and Qi. Mana is, simply put, elemental energy that our mind has condensed into a form that we can interact with. Mana is stored in the mind and flows along the nervous system. Qi is quite similar, the difference is that Qi is condensed in the body and stored in an area of the body called the dantian and flows along vessels in the body known as meridians. Humans are very rarely born with a dantian and meridian system.
In fact, that is the specialty of our enemies. While this may seem like a disadvantage towards our Human race, the reverse is also true. Our Human race specializes in Mana techniques, also known as magic. Our enemies are not as intelligent as we are so it is very rare for them to develop someone capable of using magic. The probability of a human being born with a dantian and meridian system is about the same as the probability of our enemy raising a mage.”
That was a lot of information to ponder over. First of all, it’s obvious that he is purposefully being as vague as possible when describing the ‘enemies’, probably wants me to ask about them.
So one side specializes in Mana techniques while the other side specializes in Qi techniques. On the surface both sides are equally matched, I guess that would explain why the war between the two has lasted so long.
This also raised another question. There is no such thing as Mana on Earth and there was never a case of someone being born with a dantian and meridian system, I would have heard of it. If you assume it is a trait unique to the humans of this world, 'the original world', then wouldn’t summoning humans that are unable to use Mana and Qi dilute their bloodline? And raises the bigger question, why do they have tails?
I’d just decided what my third and final question would be when I saw someone from the group mustering his courage as if to snag the opportunity. I don’t know what he wanted to ask but surely it couldn’t be more important, to ensure my question gets answered I had to ask it quickly. And yet, the words that came out of my mouth were not the ones I intended:
“Why do you have a tail, and how do I get one?”